TLASILA Blog: A forum for all things related (and of interest) to the experimental collective To Live and Shave in L.A. Founded by Tom Smith in May 1990, TLASILA is antithesis, energized at the juncture of aesthetic revulsion. Genre is obsolete.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Not that it matters much in a world so riven by tumult, anxiety,
violence, authoritarian stupidity and inequality, but our wee protest
meow, Approach to Fear: Regeneration, was selected as the Best of
2017: Noise by Raymond Cummings
and the generous humanoids at Magnet. (Link: here.) This is such nice news - I just
wanted to get some of that intense post-election ANGER off my chest.
Sixty-eight friends joined in, et voila. A hearty high-nine to all the
contributors. Huzzah KSV!

Friday, December 29, 2017

Howard Stelzer posted this appreciation of Peach of Immortality's newly issued nine-disc compilation Surrealismus: Paris Prag Rockville earlier today on social media. We are in turn appreciative of his kind words...

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If Surrealismus arrived any sooner, it'd be on every worthwhile reviewer's "Best of 2017" list, not that I believe Tom Smith
cares about those damned things... I only mention it b/c this
monstrosity, in the works for longer than Facebook has existed, is an
unquestionably MAJOR thing and you do need to hear it.

It's not
even Tom's best work... after 1992, his music grew exponentially in
depth/complexity/etc and continues to do so... "best" is a tough
distinction to make in the face of
ongoing best-ness. However: the music compiled here literally changed my
life. If I didn't run into this tanned weirdo making tape loops in Rat
Bastard's Miami Beach studio when I was a high school goofball just
beginning to ignorantly bang cassettes together, I would not be
ignorantly banging cassettes together today.

So what is this? It's a 9xCDR (!!!) set collecting music both released and (more frequently) not by Tom Smith's 80's/90's band Peach of Immortality. Some of it sounds, to 2017/18 ears, a lot like the genres that Smith
has since broken free of: noise, improvisation, 'industrial' etc... but
the singular blood & passion is audible. Listen to the glorped tape
fog in The Baptist Hymnal, REM = Air Supply, Talking Heads '77,
or that remarkable 1986 live recording from TT the Bear's Place and tell
me that, if you encountered any of it unprepared at 16 years old, your
face would not also have melted clean off.

I've told the story
before, but it's worth repeating: after uncomprehendingly
watching/hearing Tom record some loops taken off a Misfits bootleg in
Rat's studio one school-night evening in 1990 or 1991, I asked him what
exactly he was doing... his pithy reply: "I'm trying to make a tape deck
ROCK". And that, friends, is why I make music now. Buy this album, then
listen to the rest of Tom Smith's work to find out what it was merely a prelude to.

I was gobsmacked when I found mother's secret stash of photos from her
teens and early 20s - her allure was obvious. This image was
particularly astounding, as she'd always been quite tight-lipped about
life before my father. I imagine Eunice as a real heartbreaker, part
man-crazed party doll, part calculating social mover, and thoroughly
independent. All positive attributes! Today would have been her 95th
birthday.

She had long since ripped at least one budding squire out of her
life, but who could it have been? (I have suspicions - her high school
graduation Autographs book is stuffed with variations on "Roses are
red, violets are blue...") She was the queen of tiny Warwick, Georgia,
but attended high school in the neighboring town of Sylvester, which
must have seemed like Kuala Lumpur by comparison. Here, in 1940, she's
radiant, 19, ready to take on all comers. Then, of course, she met my
grease monkey father five or six years later and all bets were off - it
was love at first sight for both. Thanks for everything, Mom. You were a
handful.

Promo alert: One last release for '017 from Karl Schmidt Verlag.
Namely, Praha Olomouc Ostrava Bratislava: November 2016 by Smith
Pelikán Klamm. This was one of the best tours of my life, raucous and
deeply rewarding. The audience in Prague were well-versed, attentive, in
the know. The attendees and captive prisoners at the rough-and-tumble
bar in Olomouc forcefully voiced their opposition but were won over - or
worn down - by our savoir faire. (Or maybe just drunk enough to
let loose.) The industrial-goth event in Ostrava was a poor fit for us
but we soldiered through with a tight set and choice bot mots. (At least
Patrik and Jan were snickering.) We smoked at the Next Fest in
Bratislava (one of my favorite cities on the planet); the organizers
approached me at the end of the night, discussed the pros and cons of
the various performances, and then said "but YOUR set, you guys, that
was EXTREMELY experimental!" I had to laugh. All we did was walk out and
do our thing. My most outré move? I spoke to the audience, looked them
in the eye. A bridge too far for most, I suppose. Anyhow, it's all
there, save for line hum and the like. Two recordable CDs, for your
(dis)pleasure.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Promo report: Peach of Immortality nine-disc Surrealismus: Paris Prag
Rockville compilation (KSV 424). This flat-panel (as opposed to box)
set will offer a glimpse into POI's genuinely manic recording regimen,
excerpting segments from nineteen distinct, planned, argued over,
recorded (usually under the influence of acid, or speed, or something),
and, as goes without saying, hopelessly uncommercial and ultimately
unissued albums. (Hopeless by mid-80s standards, that is, considering
the DC locale and its predominant, hippie-hardcore norms. If we'd been
in Tokyo, Berlin, the East Village, or, dunno, Milwaukee, maybe a
different story.) I've just finished mixing one of the "studio" tracks
issued as part of Jehovah My Black Ass - R.E.M. Is Air Supply!, and
our expedient, low-tech approach to recording (a weird cassette system
where we'd track one side, then apply silver adhesive to the flip,
reverse the tape, and track backwards, which would be reproduced as
forwards) was not perhaps to our benefit. The REM / Air Supply composition in question, "31 Jan 86," clumped Mark Shellhaas'
caustic digital frippery atop my live tape manipulations (of a
Corrosion of Conformity ditty), cluttering the frequency traffic and
making it difficult to tell what the fuck was going on. (Which, if you
were tripping your guts out, as we were, sounded AMAZING.) The flip side
is far more coherent, with Lowell Ginsberg's bass gawping below Jared Louche's
excellent tabletop guitar lashings. I stripped the two halves, checked
and matched the intro points using a copy of the 1986 test pressing for
comparison, normalized the levels, adjusted the EQ to abrade some of the
mid-range clatter from the tape/digital FX track, floated the A side
strip with a smidgen of verb to lift it out of the miasma, and panned
the channels just so to achieve a bit more separation. It sounds much,
much better than before. That's more or less what it takes to restore
some of this material; other tracks are self-contained and need only
a wee dollop of mousse. It should be ready by the end of the week!Apropos of: read this post from the quiescent but no less illuminating WFMU Blog.

To Live and Shave in L.A.'s Beyond the Wealth of Associations, the Damp - featuring our younger brother Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson - is now available for contemplation and deep layer excision from Karl Schmidt Verlag.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

The second monthly episode of my R.E.M., REO, Indigo, Chicago program
airs tonight (2am-5am Stateside) on WGXC 90.7-FM / Wave Farm Radio. This
month, hour-long tributes to both Sunny Murray and Z'ev, a half-hour
curated by Miami Beach's Holly Hunt, a new episode of I Can Help
(during which Prurient's interminable Rainbow Mirror is reduced to a
neat and tidy thirty seconds), and brand-new music from Aaron Dilloway,
Merkwürdig Riechnerv, and To Live and Shave in H.H. Plus a couple of
German things (Borsig Werke, Gerhard Rühm) tossed in for good luck. Stream, wait for a rebroadcast,
or remain ignorant - your choice!

Apologies for being a bit lazy over at Karl Schmidt Verlag - I‘ve only been able to summon the strength to release THIRTY-NINE new and archival albums! Sloth, cruel sloth. Many of those in the latter category were thought lost in the wake of the 2015 hard drive crash which nearly destroyed KSV. Some belong to our expanding parallel series, in which long-deleted early releases are supplanted by works from emerging outsider artists. Modesty demands the truth: those of recent vintage are rather extraordinary. Or, if you prefer, “good,” especially compared to normal vanilla good. There are seven or so more to post (including a nine-disc Peach of Immortality compilation); I’ll be offering discount bulk packages for enthusiasts who want to go deep. Check back on Wednesday for info. As for now, scroll through the new arrivals at KSV Bandcamp.Yours,TS

Dear vinyl collecting filth chums: don‘t snooze on the new 10“ mono lathe-cut
dubplate from Hannover ensemble Merkwürdig Riechnerv. It‘s a steal at €18. (They're expensive to cut, clothe and ship.) Only fifteen were made, and it'll be available at KSV Bandcamp within the hour. Cut by Rat Bastard at Dan
Hosker Studio in Miami Beach, and featuring Bianca Blob, Andreas Brüning, and your(s) sultry.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Below, perp the five hour-long discs and packed snap-front package that make up
Merkwürdig Riechnerv’s new Rigged Distribution Variations album. This
limited-edition set will be sold tonight at the Sturmglocke gig and made available
tomorrow at KSV Bandcamp, where you’ll find another new release and fifteen restored albums (once thought lost after the label’s 2015 hard drive
crash) waiting to appraise your apathy...

The critical response to Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred
Deer has been a faintly damning / begrudgingly positive scrawl of
evocations, but my response is the one I'm most concerned about. I very
much enjoyed its stubborn, strangulated acceleration. The pink neon
"Iphigenia" clue falls more than halfway into the film, five or six
scenes before the crazed sacrifice sequence. The sickly resonances
align, Ligeti whispers over the end credits, done. The wounds feel real.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Re 8 December: I came to Albert Ayler’s indefatigable, sob-soaked,
funereal roar a bit late - 1974. I was swept away, and devoured
everything I could find on the periphery of ancestral Shitville.Ghosts. Music
was dead and done.

The contrapuntal immensity and unholy restraint
exhibited by Sunny Murray was a massive influence on my late teen
thinking. Not on my rough and tattered tape edits, mind - I was too
angry to concern myself with trivialities of technique. No, Murray was a
fucking Oklahoman GIANT, and his was a blueprint for total refusal.
That was immediately clear.

As this supergod takes a well-deserved bow, I
offer thanks to James Marcellus Arthur Murray.

The new Merkwürdig Riechnerv 10” lathe-cuts just arrived from Rat
Bastard. The EP, Spit It Out Versions, will be on sale at our show at
Sturmglocke (in Hannover) this Saturday, December 16th. It’s a limited edition of 15,
so it’s probably best if interested parties don’t snooze on these yawlps
of derangement. Digital doorstops will be available at KSV Bandcamp
from Saturday!

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About Me

Began making music at nine - shortwave radio and turntable manipulation. (Just wicked child's play, but ideas quickly coalesced.) Joined an African-American funk ensemble at 13. Within minutes of his debut, received an ear-nuzzle and a beer. Hooked. Enrolled in an electronic music class at university in 1974; joined the staff of its radio station the same year. Initial electro-acoustic compositions recorded (often in collaboration with Don Fleming) in 1975. During off-hours at the station, emboldened both by the aesthetic promise of punk and Lee Perry's titanic Super Ape, subverted production facilities to create fractured dub versions of extant, "underdone" releases. Moved to NYC in 1977; kept eyes peeled. Migrated next to Athens, Georgia; formed Boat Of (1979-83). Moved to DC, resurfaced as Peach of Immortality (1983-91). Amidst turmoil, signed on with Pussy Galore (8/85 to 2/86). Initial TLASILA demos were recorded by TS in May 1990. Smith moved to Miami in 1991 and perfected the TLASILA template. Rat Bastard and Ben Wolcott were aboard by 93-94. Moved to Germany in 2008. MORE!!